


One Last Cigarette

by CaptainKat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, M/M, Sex eventually, i promise it gets cute, suicide talk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-01 20:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8637544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainKat/pseuds/CaptainKat
Summary: You're tired. You're always tired. You should sleep. You always sleep. Your life is a routine of sleeping, smoking, drinking, and popping pills. An endless cycle that should kill you sooner or later. Sometimes, you hope sooner. Usually, you hope sooner. He found you, discarded and abandoned, and cleaned you up. Then, he left. You owe him your life. You hardly want your life. You want him back. And finally, eventually, he does come back.





	1. Chapter 1

But this time you hadn’t had anyone. The first time there was AA and the second there was Dave. You laughed kind of dryly, but it wasn't long lived. It hurt too much. The world kind of twirled around you, and you grabbed your head to make it stop. You were losing it again. They said it would stop. You supposed they lied, like so many of the doctors you had been to before. “Take this miracle medicine,” they always say, “it’ll stop your headaches.” You scoff, and then wince. Everything hurts. It all hurts so much anymore. Now that you’ve forgotten how to breathe, everything hurts. You’re in the dark. You’ve been in the dark since he left. He was your light and now he is gone. It’s been a year. Or maybe two. You can’t remember. You’ve been in this hole far too long. It fits you, this hole. It was made for you, you think. Or maybe it grew around you. Perhaps, even, you found it or made it your own. You can’t remember that either. All you know is that you haven’t been out of this hole in so long that you don’t even know what month it is. It occurs to you that you haven't paid your bills this month. 

You stagger over to your sink, and grab the counter to stabilize yourself. With one shaky hand you fumble open the cabinet above the sink and fish out a bottle of pills. You shake out one, two. Three, four, five. You put two back. Headache medicine. Pain killers. You dont know. Something. You dont want to kill yourself, you just want to sleep. You pop the pills into your mouth, swallow dry. You shake your head and shuffle back towards what should be your living room. You have no clue what it is. Maybe you could call it a work room. Computer bits and pieces and laptops are strewn all over. Single socks and empty food packaging litter the floor. A large beanbag rests in the corner, a five dollar steal from a lawn sale. You somehow make your way over to it and curl up into a ball. Maybe this time when you fall asleep you will wake up and things will be better. You sigh heavily, which sends you into a fit of nasty, painful coughs. You cough for what feels like ten minutes. It could just have been ten seconds. Your sense of time is skewed. You take a shuddering breath and close your eyes. The last thing you see before you close your eyes is an empty package of cigarettes lying on the floor.

When you wake up, you have no idea what time it is. This does not faze you. It is not unusual. You still have a headache. This does not faze you. It is not unusual. You have no idea what woke you up, you still feel exhausted. This does faze you. This is unusual. You feel as if you have hardly slept, as if the pills didn't even have time to kick in. A pounding on your door makes you clutch your head, and you realize what woke you. Rather slowly, you slump off of the beanbag and into the floor. Before you can even stand up, the banging on your door starts in again. "I'm coming, I'm coming," you shout. At least, you think you shout. You haven't spoken in awhile. For all you know, you may not have said anything. You make your way to the door, and open it. A short, rather angry looking lady stares up at you.

"Solluxander Captor," she begins, her face turning as red as her gingery hair, "I have been trying to get you to open this damn door for nearly an hour! What is wrong with you?" You stare at her. You blink. You stare at her some more. Your mouth goes dry. You open it, and then close it. You open it again. "Terezi." you say. "Yes, that would be my name! Now are you going to let me inside or what?" she bats at your ankles with that stupid cane she carries around with her, and you pull the door open wider, and step back. You let her inside. She wrinkles her nose. "Mr. Dicolor Bluecherry Bomb, your living room is a mess." You nod. You need to clean it. You watch her pick across the room, notice she is being very careful not to step on any spare parts or any old food. She stops in the doorway. Turns around. "You are sick," she says. You nod. "This is not the kind of sick that can be cured with a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a fluffy blanket." You shrug. "You need help." You shake your head. "Speak to me," she says.

"I don't remember how to," you tell her. She stares at you from the doorway between your kitchen and living room. "I'm sorry," you offer. She shakes her head. She steps towards you and takes your hand in hers. She offers you a smile.  
"You do not need to apologize. You do not need to fear, either, for I, Terezi Pyrope, will help you feel better. We're going to start by cleaning this messy apartment up. Hasn't your landlord inquired?" she kicks at an empty box on the floor. You watch it skitter away from her foot, wondering if your landlord has been calling. You honestly don't know. "I have no clue," you tell her, leaning down to pick up the box. It is an empty cracker package. You sigh. This is going to be a long night.

You walk past Terezi into your kitchen, and fumble around on the wall for your light switch. You flick it on. With a buzz, the light slowly comes to life and kind of dimly illuminates the room. It is barely a room, barely bigger than a fancy closet. It is filled with garbage, with half eaten meals and empty 2-liters of off brand soda. The sink is full of shit, of tupperware and takeout containers and dirty dishes. You walk straight across to your sink, and pull a trash bag out of the box on the counter. You pull the lips apart and whip it through the air to open it. You wonder when the last time you opened a trashbag is, and are unsurprised to realize you can't recall. 

"Terezi," you call over your shoulder, "Why are you here?" You sweep an arm across the counter, knocking trash and silverware and plates so encrusted with shit that there is no longer any hope, into the trash bag.  
"We were worried, Sollux!" She comes to stand next to you, and starts shoveling trash into the bag with you.  
"We?" You ask, swiping at a new section of counter.  
"Yes, we! Aradia, Karkat, Roxy, Rose, Kanaya, Feferi, Nepeta, John, Dave, well, pretty much everyone!"

You stop moving. You take a deep breath. You turn to look at her. "Dave was worried?" She looks puzzled. You are puzzled. She nods. You let out a breath of air you did not know you were holding. "I need to see him." You say.  
"I can arrange that," she promises. You go back to cleaning. You clean for what feels like hours. It probably was hours. Terezi throws up twice. You fill nine trash bags. You can see the floor. You actually have a bed, and a couch, and no longer have to sleep on the bean bag. You smoke no less than a full pack of cigarettes. You drink two glasses of straight whiskey. Terezi sleeps on your bed. You sleep on your couch. The last thing you see before you close your eyes is the ugly beige color of your carpeting.


	2. Chapter 2

“Wake up, sleepyhead!”  A voice, and a loud one at that, startles you awake. You jerk into an upright position and squint around, looking for the source. Since when was anyone but you in your apartment?  
A bright haired blurry figure stands in front of you, hands on her hips and a wide grin splitting her face. You drop back onto your couch, suddenly remembering the events of the previous night. “Shit, Terezi,” you hear yourself say, “Why the fuck do you wake up so goddamn early?”  “It’s half past two in the afternoon, bluecherry pie!” Her shrill voice pierces your thick skull, resulting in an insta-headache. You raise yourself up again, sitting, actually, more like slouching, and glaring at the ball of energy standing in the middle of your living room. Fumbling around the blankets for your glasses, you mumble a string of curse words. Goddamn glasses can’t be found fucking anywhere, and now some shittily exuberant do-gooder is waking you up too early from a well deserved slumber. Not that your slumbers are really anything to brag about, unless you're competing to see who can sleep the longest and the deadest. You suppose maybe you might sleep more regularly if you stopped taking pills and instead let yourself sleep naturally, but you're too afraid of the nightmares and the paralyzing anxiety. You jam your glasses onto your face and blink around at your surroundings. The apartment really does look nice, as nice as a shitty outer Manhattan setup can look, now that it’s cleanish. Your carpet has some unidentifiable stains, and the upholstery on your couch has seen better days, but at least you can see them. Your walls need a good scrubbing down, and you should maybe do something about the smell lingering around. It reeks of cigarette smoke and something that smells sad, like an abandoned house. There's an underlying smell of rot, left behind by the food you and Terezi spent all night cleaning up. It looks much better, though, than it did before. You should remember to thank Terezi, because there's no way in hell you would have even thought of cleaning your apartment if she hadn't shown up uninvited. You feel like hell though, and it occurs to you that you probably look it, too. You subtly raise an arm to sniff your pits, and recoil in disgust. You smell like a zoo. Like animal shit and depression. It’s no wonder Terezi threw up last night. She’s just standing there, now, in the middle of your living room. 

You’re not really sure what to do. You think maybe you should shower, but then again, when’s the last time you actually did anything you should have done? Terezi is watching you, presumably waiting for your next move.  “I’m not really sure what to do,” you say weakly.  “Well, typically, getting out of bed will do a person wonders,” she quips. “A shower is also advisable.”  Her words confirm your thoughts, and you realize that -yes- you do have to shower. You stand up, and your arms unfurl and your back arches in a spine popping stretch. Terezi grimaces.  “So, what will you do while I shower?” You ask her. There’s not much to do in your apartment. In fact, there's practically nothing. You haven't had any desire to do anything, so you didn't bother keeping anything to do. The T.V is hooked up to a DVD player- you never saw the use in paying for cable- and you haven’t got any movies, save for one you rented months ago. You scratched the disc all to hell one drunken night, and instead of sending it back to the company, you chose instead to pay for it, so as to avoid admitting to your fuck up. Most of your laptops are encrypted or so overloaded with your coding for work that theyre virtually unusable for leisurely purposes. Some of them are actually flat out unusable, period. One of them even has a good chance of exploding, you think. You downloaded and modified a virus, and you're pretty sure that running said virus would cause the computer to explode. You're so sure, in fact, that you considered using it to commit suicide a few times. 

You do have an Xbox though, and a Gamecube. And a ps1, ps2, ps3, and a ps4. The PS4 is still in it’s box, though, and most of the other consoles are unplugged. They're just stacked near the T.V kind of half-assedly. You almost suggest Terezi hook one up for herself, and dig through your cardboard box of games for something to play, but she’s already pulled out her phone.  “I have some calls to make,” she answers, and that’s that. You must shower.  The bathroom is cold when you enter, and you shiver as you strip off the clothes you’ve been wearing for who knows how many days. The cool tiles of the shower floor are a stark contrast to the burning hot water you turn on, though they warm up soon enough. You stand there, letting the water wash over you for a couple of minutes. When was the last time you took a shower, anyway? Too long ago, you suppose. As you wash your hair and scrub the filth off your body, you wonder how you got to be this way. You peaked early in life, patenting a software program shortly after you got out of high school. You’re not sure you can really say you peaked, though, since you tossed all the credit and success to your partner, Dirk Strider. Strider. Your thoughts always seem to return to the Striders. Usually, though, it’s the younger of the two that fills your mind.  You abruptly shut off the water and step out of the shower, reaching onto the shelves for a towel. You have to stop thinking about him. Glancing at the wall clock, you realize you spent more time in the shower than you intended to, and you quickly towel yourself dry and throw on clothes from the laundry hamper. You don’t really know if they’re clean or not. All your clothes wind up in the hamper, somehow or another. A quick look in the mirror reveals that you desperately need a haircut. Terezi can probably help you with that.  “Sollux?” Almost as if she heard you think her name, she’s appeared at the door. “Are you done? I need to piss!” she asks in-between knocks.  “Yeah, I’m done. I’m coming out now.” You open the door and flash a small grimace at Terezi. “I stunk. The shower was nice. Should have done it sooner.” She smiles at you, and then pushes past you into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. There’s a soft smell of cinnamon and sugar coming from the kitchen, and for the first time in ages you feel hungry. You follow the scent to find cinnamon toast waiting for you on the table.  “Thank you, Terezi!” you call towards the bathroom. You silently add to yourself that you're thanking her for all of this. She probably doesn't know how much you need her here. As you settle into the chair and begin eating, Terezi reappears from the bathroom and drops into the chair next to you.  “Sollux," she says softly, "Remember when I said we were all worried?" You nod. You're not sure where she's going with this. "Well..." she hasn't raised her voice, still speaking gently and carefully. "Dave was the most worried. He worries about you constantly. He texted me over and over again last night. He misses you, he wants to know you're okay. He wants to see you." You drop your toast and stare at her. 

"I.. don't think I'm ready to see him," You choke out. You can't imagine seeing him, looking at him and knowing he's not yours, not in love with you. You can't imagine him saying your name and it not sounding like he's carefully measuring each syllable to make sure he says it just the way he wants it to sound. "I loved him. I loved him and he left me. I can't see him, Terezi. I barely know how to function around you. All I'd do with him nearby is chainsmoke and fret and wonder when things went so wrong and if they'd be okay again, ever."  As you're giving this speech, you watch Terezi’s facial expression go from hopeful and bright to sympathetic and sad. You’ve seen that look before, in the faces of delivery people and your landlord. People look at you and see someone broken, someone lost and someone scared. They’re not wrong, but you wish they wouldn’t look at you like that. But then she gives her head one quick, curt nod, and says "I completely understand, Mr. Blue Raspberry, but you will have to face him someday." She says it very matter of factly, her usual shit eating grin slowly creeping up her face. "And believe me, things between you and the youngest Strider won't be nearly as odd as you think." And with that, she pushes out of her chair and away from the table, towards the bathroom. She says something about taking a shower, but you can't hear her around the thoughts ricocheting around your brain. He misses you... He wants to see you. You want to cry, and you want to hide, but somewhere in your heart, a tight sensation has been alleviated slightly.


End file.
